Harry glanced nervously around the circle of chairs that had been placed around the fireplace of the small sitting-room into which Count Dracula had ushered them.  To either side of him, Ron, Hermione and Ginny were seated in plush, horsehair armchairs much like the one he was in.  The other seats—it was the presence of the people currently occupying the other seats that was causing this sudden anxiety attack of Harry’s.

 

            He glanced out of the corner of his eye at Ron and Hermione.  The brown-haired girl seemed to be as tense of he was, her pose rigid, her hands grasping the arms of the chair in which she was seated in a grip that, while not quite tight enough to turn her knuckles white, looked to be rather close.  Ron was looking round at the group gathered round the fire with interest.  Harry followed his gaze around the circle.  Certainly, the people with whom they were to meet were a…visually interesting lot.  In two chairs flanking the fireside sat Holmes and Professor Dumbledore.  His eyes met those of the aged wizard.  The old man bestowed upon him a nod and an encouraging smile.  Harry smiled back.  He hoped he’d be able to meet the Headmaster’s expectations of him.

 

            Beside Holmes was a tall, stern-faced Sikh, dressed in a naval uniform of some sort.  Harry fought to keep from shrinking under the man’s kestrel gaze—those glinting orbs peering out from beneath a craggy cliff of a brow, almost laser-like in their intensity.  At Dumbledore’s side was another tall man, heavily muscled, with an almost feral grace to his movements, and a hint of wildness, barely controlled, in his gray eyes.

 

            Dracula sat away from the fire, holding the hand of a slender, auburn haired-woman.  Harry tried not to think about it, but when they’d come in and Dracula had gone to embrace the lady, he’d noticed the same pallor to her skin as there had been on the Vampire Lord’s.  He shuddered.  Here he was, having tea with two of the most feared Dark Creatures around.  He wondered if the likelihood of his doing so was any greater than that of his meeting the people around him.  Probably not.

 

            The final member of the group was a slim, sharp-featured man with an air of indolence about him that was belied by the cold, calculating intelligence hiding within his ice-blue eyes.  Holmes had introduced him as “Raffles”.  There had been a subtle antagonism between the two, as if, some time in the past, the two men had crossed swords.  At any rate, it was clear that the two of them were, at the very least uncomfortable working together.

 

            Holmes had lit his pipe, and was now regarding the four young magic-users with an appraising eye.

 

            “Now, then,” he said, finally.  “I assume you all know why you’re here.”

 

            Harry straightened in his chair.  “Y—yes, Mr. Holmes, sir,” he said, and immediately cursed himself for stuttering.

 

            The Sikh stirred in his chair.  “It is an ancient and honored society you have been chosen to join, Mr. Potter.  Its exploits in the name of the common good are many.  It counts among its members many of Britain’s, and indeed, the world’s greatest heroes.”  He steepled his fingers.  “Seven years, Mr. Potter, you have fought your secret war against the Dark Lord Voldemort.  Now, it is time to learn the true meaning of what you do, the true scale of this war in which you fight.  There are darker and more dangerous things than the Dark Lord in this world Mr. Potter.”  His eyes narrowed.  “Are you ready?”

 

            Harry tried not to squirm.  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” he replied.  He was very carefully trying to avoid saying the man’s name.  The shocks to his system of the past few hours seemed a bit too much for him to have to deal with…that as well…

 

            The tall man spoke.  “You’re making the boy nervous, Nemo.  It’s not every day one has tea with legends such as you and I.”

 

            “The boy is seventeen, Greystoke,” replied Nemo.  “He has seen and done enough that legends should mean nothing to him.  After all, he is now one himself.”

 

            “Gentlemen,” said Holmes, “I believe what Mr. Potter—and Ms. Granger, here—have difficulty with is the fact that, up to a few hours ago, you and I were nothing more than characters out of a book.”  His gaze swept across the faces of the four from Hogwarts.  “My young friends,” he continued, “I assure you, with all my honor as a gentlemen and as a servant of the Crown, that we are as real as you are.  Think now, Mr. Potter, Ms. Granger—seven years ago, before the two of you received your letters—did either of you think, even in your wildest dreams, that there was such a thing as magic?  That before the year was out you would have flown on broomsticks, confronted a troll and rescued a precious mystical artifact from the clutches of the Dark Lord himself?  Either of you?”

 

            Hermione shook her head.  There was a haunted look in her eyes.  Ron glanced at her; then, slowly, he put his hand upon hers.  She clutched at it as if she were drowning.

 

            Holmes nodded.  “Precisely so.  And just as you found, then, that there was more to this world than the everyday realities of steel and concrete, television and radio shows and little people hurrying to and from the great cities on the highways of life, so, now, are you finding, my young friends, that there is more afoot to this game than dragons, giants, and dark-robed wizards striking in the night.”

 

            Raffles laughed.  “My dear fellow, you do sound more like a poet than a great detective when you talk like that.  What our little secret history gained, the literary world lost when you embarked on your famed career.”

 

            “Do I?” replied Holmes.  “Is that not because, my old rival, that is the only way one can think of to speak of such things?”  He smiled.  “It may be that I have spent entirely too much time in the company of Elijah Snow.  Tell me, though—as you stood upon the rooftops and looked north and saw the Martians in their war-walkers bearing down upon the City of London, what did you feel?”

 

            Raffles fell silent.  “You have me there, old chap.”  He chuckled.  “It was a dashed close game, while it lasted, dodging those damned tripods waiting for Moreau’s little package to do its work.  But Nemo had the jolliest time of it himself, didn’t you, old chap?”

 

            “We nearly lost the Nautilus,” replied the old Sikh, shortly.  “But let us come back to the matter at hand.”  He turned back to face the young magic-users.  “Yes,” he said, “this did happen.  There was, in 1898, a war fought between humanity and invaders from the planet Mars.  On humanity’s side was an assortment of adventurers, scientists and crusaders, men like Holmes, Raffles, and myself.”  He paused, glancing towards the lady by Dracula’s side.  “And women like the Ms. Murray,” He added, quickly.  “The war was won, not through the blind chance of the invaders falling victim to our own earthly maladies, but through the innovations, strategies and efforts of the most extraordinary minds this planet had yet produced.”  The old man’s eyebrows drew slowly together, the eyes glinting from within the deep sockets like bale-fires in the night.  “And this was only the end of the last century.  The world has grown, if anything, even stranger since then.”

 

            Harry took a deep breath.  “I can see that, sir…”  His voice was hushed.  “And my friends and I—we’re a part of it, aren’t we?”  He looked round the circle, speaking the names of those present as he met their gaze.  “The Great Detective.  The Lord of Vampires—and his mate.  The Captain of the Nautilus.  The Lord of the Apes.”  He stopped as he came to Raffles.  “I’m afraid I don’t quite know who you are, sir.”

 

            Raffles sighed.  “Youth these days…” he muttered.  “The Amateur Cracksman, boy.  That was what I was known as, back in my adventuring days.  A thief extraordinaire, I was.  You wouldn’t believe some of the jobs I’ve pulled.”  He nodded in Holmes’ direction.  “I even had a couple of run-ins with the Great Detective himself, although, for some reason, nobody bothered to write them down…”

 

            “Yes, sir,” said Harry, hurriedly moistening his lips.  “But we’re a part of it, aren’t we?  All these stories—of lost cities in the heart of Africa, of exploring the sunken ruins of Atlantis and fighting the Napoleon of Crime here, in London—they’re all real.”  His mind was racing, now, piecing together the clues he’d picked up here and there—the pictures and artifacts outside, the superheroes at the train station, the living legends with whom he had spent the last fifteen minutes chatting.  The picture that was emerging almost stunned him with its magnitude, bright and strange and full of wonder.  He realized that he was smiling, a big, silly, childlike, wonder-filled grin, and caught himself before he could embarrass himself further.

 

            “For a moment there, I thought you’d gone all dippy on us,” commented Ron.  “Come on, Harry, what gives?”

 

            Holmes was looking at Ron and Ginny, his eyes thoughtful.  Finally, he spoke.  “Mr. Weasley, Ms. Weasley.  I suppose we owe you an explanation.  Tell me, does the Wizarding World have heroes of its own?   People whose calling it is to venture into the outer dark and challenge the extraordinary, all just for the seeing and the doing of the deed?  Are there such people, Mr. Weasley?”

 

            Ron thought.  There were people among the wizarding populace who went on adventures, who saw the things most others did not, who stood between society at large and the forces without that threatened to tear it apart.  There were heroes.

 

            He had not had the opportunity in his youth to hear of the adventures of the heroes of the day—the Weasleys had been too concerned with the problems of feeding seven children in the years after the war to afford any luxuries—but there had been his father’s collection of Young Wizard’s Adventure magazines.  He remembered the tales—the harrowing account of the magizoologist Newt Scamander’s ill-fated expedition into the Plateau of Leng; the final, apocalyptic battles of Godric Griffindor and Salazar Slytherin—old, old enemies united once more in combat against the demon from the skies that had raged across Europe and Asia before finally being brought to bay far to the east by the two sorcerers and their motley band of allies.  He thought of his brother Bill’s now famous descent into the tomb of the mad mummy Imhotep, now being serialized in the pages of the Daily Prophet.  He regarded his friend, The Boy Who Lived, and thought upon the many adventures they had had together.

 

            Heroes, he thought.  He looked about the circle.  The names Harry had addressed each of these people by—they were the names of legends themselves.  Just like Bill.  Like Newt Scamander.  Like Godric Griffindor and Salazar Slytherin themselves.

 

            It couldn’t be.  Or could it?  These people were Muggles.  They were supposed to be dull, unimaginative people, each moving placidly through the motions of his or her daily life like cattle while under their noses the Wizarding World lived, bright and shiny and full of color and light and wonder.  And yet…

 

            And yet, these Muggles claimed to have fought off an invasion from Mars.  They had lived lives at least as long as Professor Dumbledore’s.  They associated with a Vampire Lord.  And, just hours before, he had seen people, Muggles too if they were anything, fly without the aid of wand or broomstick, call forth powers unlike any he’d seen before, and crush a Death Eater attack almost without effort.

 

            They scared him.  These were people who danced a deadly dance with the devils of this world without even the advantages that even the most inept of wizards possessed.  He tightened his grip on Hermione’s hand.

 

            “Y-yes,” he said, finally.  “There are heroes.  That’s what you are, isn’t it?  Heroes for the Muggles.”

 

            Holmes smiled.  “Heroes.  That we are, my boy.  That we are.  Though I am sure most of us would prefer it if you refrained from using that rather ridiculous terminology to refer to those of us who are…less similarly talented than you are.”  He noticed the tension in Ron’s shoulders, and sighed.  “We are not monsters, boy.  Don’t look so scared of us.  Did you ever think of us non-magical folk as just people who do things a little differently from you?  As people who, like, Wizarding folk, live, work, play and dream?  Who, if their experience precludes them from believing in magic the way you do, still possess a sense of wonder all their own?  Have you?”

 

            Ron looked down at his feet.  He had no answer.

 

            Into the silence, Dumbledore spoke.  “Ron.”  His voice was gentle.  “You have just learned a lesson that I try to press upon every student under my care.  I do not think you should be calling him ‘boy’ any longer, Holmes.”

 

            Holmes nodded.

 

            Shame-faced, Ron looked up at Hermione.  The disappointment in her eyes almost broke his heart.  He felt her grip on his hand loosen.  Desperately, almost despairingly, he tightened his grip.  Her hand within his felt limp, almost un-alive.  Slowly, he opened his fingers once more, gently letting her hand fall from his.

 

            Gently, Harry reached over and placed his own hand on his friend’s shoulder.

 

            It was Holmes who broke the silence.  “So.  Now you know.  This is a strange world, my friends.  And there are other things beside the Dark Lord Voldemort who seek to tear it apart.”

 

            Harry’s head came up.  Other things?  He felt a chill run through him as Holmes’ words sank in.  He had spent his life fighting against the Dark Lord.  He had hoped, almost against hope, that, after the battle was over, he would finally be able to rest.  Now, these tidings of new foes seemed to sound the death knell for all his dreams of peace.

 

            “What…other things?” he asked, finally.

 

              It was Greystoke who replied.  “Terrible things, Mr. Potter.”  He rose from his chair, the springs creaking as they relaxed from under his bulk.  “You know what I am, don’t you, Mr. Potter—where I came from?  I grew to manhood in the forests of Gabon under the care of the great apes who dwelled there.  A strange story, is it not, that one such as I should proceed from a wild man of the jungle to a Peer of the Realm?”  The gray eyes bored, gimlet-like, into Harry’s own.  “It becomes even stranger, my young friend, much stranger.”

 

            He turned and went to a bookshelf.  “In the early years of this century, there were men like me; the Great Detective,” and here he nodded to Holmes, “still plied his trade on Baker Street, along with others of the same calling; and the Great Powers waged a shadow war of cloaks, daggers and deadly masterminds in the dark.”  Looking over the bookshelf, he found the volume he was looking for and pulled it out.  “During the Great War, the heroes were aviators, stalking each other across the wide-open skies like predators across the veldt.  Twenty years after the beginning of the century, there were heroic scientists and dark avengers blazing trails through the urban jungles of the world, seeking out secrets in the night.”

 

            Greystoke opened the book, flipping the pages until he found the one he wanted.  He handed the open volume to Harry.  “And, in 1933, a new creature entered the jungle.  And the world was never the same again.”

 

            Harry looked at the book and gasped.  Greystoke had handed it to him opened to a page containing a photographic plate.  The picture was in black-and-white—it had obviously been taken in the earlier years of the twentieth century.  It was remarkably clear, though—Harry could make out the tiniest of details in the background, if he squinted.

 

            A man hung, suspended in mid-leap, above the rooftops of a great and sprawling city, so far above that he seemed almost to be flying.  There was joy on his face, as he looked down on the city far below, a joy that seemed to be born of life itself and the realization that this, of all things had been granted to him.

 

            “Good God.”  Harry stared.  By now, after all he’d seen, he knew he shouldn’t have been all that surprised.  He leaned back in his chair, staring into the shadows pooling upon the ceiling amid the beams above the fireplace.  Then, he sat up and leafed through the book, stopping as he came to more photographs showing men and women in strange costumes performing feats impossible with seeming ease.

 

            He saw the tall man in a cape as black as night brooding over the Gothic towers of a dark, fog-bound city; the statuesque woman clad in a star-spangled costume of red, blue and gold.  He saw, too, the man of flame soaring over Manhattan’s skyline, locked in combat with another man with rippling muscles and tiny wings sprouting from his feet.  And he wondered.

 

            “They’re all there,” he muttered.  “It’s all real.  My God.  They’re all real.”  He turned to Greystoke.  “Is that it, then?  All these stories—the movies, books, television shows—they’re all real?”

 

            “Just so, Mr. Potter, just so.”  He looked about the circle.  “Although I will admit that several of our biographers were responsible for some…exaggerations in their accounts of our various adventures.”  There were some chuckles round the ring around the fireplace.

 

            “Let us not forget, Greystoke, outright misrepresentation!”  called Dracula.

 

            Greystoke smiled.  “Yes, outright misrepresentation, too.  Not all our biographers placed us in the role of hero.  Still…”

 

He turned back to Harry.  “Do you see now, Mr. Potter, this secret world that the likes of you and I inhabit?”

 

Harry nodded.  “I think so,” he said, then frowned as another thought came to him.  “But why--?”

 

“Why is it you haven’t heard of them before now—if they were real?”

 

Harry nodded.  A silence fell around the group.  Greystoke spread his hands.

 

“Well.  Therein lies a tale.”  He sat back down in his chair.

 

“Harry,” said Hermione softly, indicating the book in his hands “could you pass that please?”  She seemed back to her old self, now—still a little pale, perhaps, her hair perhaps a little more in disarray than usual—but calm, composed.

 

He handed the book over, noting the title on the cover as he did so.  The Planetary Guide, 1930-1939.  The name seemed familiar, somehow.  He’d seen an edition of this book somewhere, he was sure of it.  Perhaps on one of his many visits to Dumbledore’s office…

 

Nemo was speaking, now.  “You wish to know what happened, Mr. Potter?  There are far worse things than your Dark Lord loose in the world.  By asking this, you will have committed yourself irrevocably to our cause.  These are dangerous people we speak about, Mr. Potter.  Do you wish to carry on?”

 

Harry looked around at his friends.  Ginny smiled and reached out to take his hand.  Ron was rubbing his face.  He looked tired.  He realized that Harry was looking at him, flushed, and looked down at his hands before glancing towards Hermione.

 

The Muggleborn girl was flipping through the pages of the book, her face grim.  Looking up, she caught both Harry and Ron waiting for her and nodded, her lips set in a thin, firm line.

 

Harry took a deep breath.  There was no helping it, he supposed.  Had he been any other person, his life perhaps happier and less trouble-filled than the one he knew, perhaps then he might have refused this challenge, refused that dreadful knowledge that, once acquired, would set him fate against fate against the dark, secret dangers that lurked within the shadows.  As it was…

 

He was the Boy Who Did Not Die, the Dark Lord’s Mirror Image.  He would know, would discover the dark and hidden things.  Holmes was right.  He was a hero.

 

Time to do his duty.

 

“Yes,” he heard himself say, and he knew that, whatever it was that would come, his life would never be the same.

 

Nemo nodded.  “Very well.”  He stood, the firelight catching his tall form and casting eerie shadows across the floors and walls of the sitting room.

 

“The War—the Second World War—was the first sign that something was going wrong.  Supermen soared into battle above the struggling hordes.  Mad scientists in hidden laboratories slaved away at monstrous devices and creatures in the name of victory.”  The Sikh took a sidelong glance at Albus Dumbledore.  “Mages on both sides fought a war of dark magicks against dark magicks.”

 

He ignored the gasps that issued from the mouths of the young wizards and witches gathered there, and carried on.

 

“It was only after the war that we truly discovered what horrors our new arts had wrought.”  The old mariner raised a pointing finger towards the ceiling.  “Look up, young wizards.  Look up.”

 

Harry’s heart leapt into his mouth.  Hanging over the party like the looming specter of the apocalypse was a giant serpent, its jaws spread wide in a death grimace so great that it seemed almost about to swallow the tiny group that sat beneath it.

 

Almost without thinking, Harry’s hand shot out, groping for something, anything—a weapon, that he would at least be able to face the monster on somewhat more equal terms.  Then he remembered that he was no longer in the Chamber of Secrets, and that the creature above him was dead, suspended from the vaulted ceiling by cables of steel.

 

“The remains of the serpent Manda, unleashed against London in the last of the great monster wars of the 1950s and ‘60s.  It was humanity who awoke them—we, with our nuclear engines of destruction and our chemicals capable of twisting life itself to new and foul forms.  The horrors we awoke—great mutated creatures, nature gone wild, even the walking dead.”  The Sikh mariner shook his head.  “And yet, I count it a miracle that we did not lose faith.  Science had awakened much good into the world, just as it had much evil.  There was still hope.

 

“That was the era when man first took those few faltering steps beyond the atmospheric veil that shrouds this small planet.  There had been a few, before then—mad scientists, wild-eyed with knowledge that would not become generally known for decades, if not centuries to come.  But this—this was an endeavour for all humanity.  It would have ushered in a new age, where to stride through the red sands of Mars would have been as commonplace an occurrence as today a flight between the continents of Europe and America is.”

 

The shadows seemed to gather beneath the old Sikh’s brows, leaving two great glittering pools of light staring out from within the darkness.  “The project was called Artemis.  And, in 1963, they were ready to send men and women to walk upon the moon.”

 

Hermione spoke up.  “Sir, but—the American space program wasn’t called Artemis.  It was—“

 

“Apollo?  So it was.  Yet even you must know by now, Ms. Granger, that there are wheels within wheels in this strange world within which we exist.  Do not the names themselves provide a clue as to the nature of these endeavours upon which humanity was engaged?  Apollo was an endeavour for the light, the bright face with which the public at large would see.  Artemis worked in the dark, as ethereal and quicksilver as the moon goddess from whom its name was taken, carrying out the secret mandates of America’s masters away from public eyes.

 

“In 1963, two missions were launched.  Neither one arrived at its destination.  It is said that, halfway between the Earth and the Moon, space itself opened.  And, one after the other, the crews of both ships found themselves exposed to…something.  No one knows what it was.  What is known is that when they returned, not one of them remained, in the strictest sense of the word…human.”

 

Harry found himself unable to repress a shudder.  The ancient Sikh’s eyebrows rose.

 

“Frightened, Mr. Potter?  I daresay you should be.  Any sane man—even one of us,” and he swept his hand about the circle of chairs, “would tremble at the thought of facing those beings—especially the Four with whom we are concerned at the present moment.  There were four people in each ship, you know.  Four on the first ship, whom we now face in battle, who have had a hand in half a hundred secret atrocities throughout the world these last forty years.”  He sighed.  “As for the other four…they were heroes.  That, I suppose, is all that needs be said about them.”

 

            He turned his great head towards the four young wizards observing them with old, old eyes; for all that they still held a glint of the great fires that burned within the man’s soul.  “You realize, my young friends, you have committed yourselves.  By hearing this…”  He sighed once again.  “It is too dangerous a secret to place in the hands of one not of our number.”

 

            “But what about Voldemort?” asked Ron.  “I mean—sir—we’ve already got one war of our own.  We can’t just—“

 

            Holmes cut him off.  “Voldemort is our first priority, Mr. Weasley.  We are as yet unable to confront the Four head to head.  They are too well hidden—too powerful, though we hope to change that soon.  The plots within plots, however, the deep secrets through which they make their influence felt upon the world—those are another matter altogether.”

 

            “But,” Hermione protested, “Mr. Holmes, you’re not saying that Voldemort is a…a tool?  A pawn of this Four?  It seems…”  She shuddered.

 

            “Evil on the scale of Voldemort’s, Ms. Granger,” replied Greystoke, “can never be said to serve anything but its own ends.  Voldemort is…useful to them.  And they, in their turn, are useful to him, though he does not know who exactly ‘they’ are.”

 

            There was silence for a while.  Finally, Harry spoke.  “So,” he breathed.  “What now?”

 

            Holmes rose.  “Now?”  He glanced towards Dumbledore.  “I fear your schooling will have to be cut short—at least, at that fine institute where the four of you have spent the past few years of your lives.  It is under siege, now—the Dark Lord’s forces will not willingly forgo the pleasure of destroying the one bastion of the maging craft yet available to the forces of the light in this country.”  His face clouded.  “Besides, we may yet require your services in the field, my young friends.  Even so.”

 

            He shook his head.  “And so it has come to this—that we must recruit children to fight with us.  Dark times indeed.”  With those words, the Great Detective’s shoulders squared—his lean frame seemed to stand a few inches taller.  “In any case,” he said, a glint in his eye, “the game’s afoot, my friends, the game’s afoot.  And though we may yet lose all in a single throw of the die, let it, at least, be know that we have all, every one of us, played our best, this day and always.”  He smiled.  “There is a…place by the seaside, where we house most of our…less conventional associates.  With Professor Dumbledore’s permission, I have arranged lodgings for the four of you there.  You’ll be meeting most of your new colleagues some time after you arrive there.  I trust that there is no problem with these arrangements?”

 

            Harry stood, too.  “I don’t suppose so, sir.”  He glanced round at his companions.

 

            “I’ll go with you, Harry,” said Ron, stoutly.

 

            Hermione stood as well, a determined look on her face.  “Some one has to keep the two of you out of trouble.  I’m in.”

 

            Finally, a small hand slipped into Harry’s own, and he turned to see Ginny smiling up at him.  “I’ll go, Harry.  Anywhere.  I’ll always be with you.”  He laughed, and slipped one arm about her shoulders and hugged her to him.

 

            Holmes smiled.  “In that case, Mr. Potter—and all of you—welcome to the League!”

Back to Stories Page                                                                                                            To Be Continued...